Digger recalls battle years

Every Anzac Day Stan Wills gets a shiver down his spine when he meets up with old mates and reminisces about his four years of service during World War II.
There are only four diggers still alive from the original 37 that made up his platoon which was a part of the 2/7th Australian Infantry Battalion that fought in the Middle East and then moved on to serve in New Guinea.
Age has caught up with the platoon and the men no longer march on their special day and instead are driven in an open windowed bus and receive the due admiration they deserve.
“Anzac Day means a great deal to me and I really enjoy catching up with the other veterans that I went to war with,” said Stan.
While the digger has spent the past 40 years in the calm surrounds of Berwick he vividly recalls the memories that led him to joining the Army as a teenager.
The life of a dairy farmer on his parent’s farm in Warragul didn’t match up to the thoughts of leaving Australia’s shores and taking off on an adventure that was full of the unknown for so many young Australian men.
While today, teenagers lie about their age to get into nightclubs, in 1941 Stan increased his age by a year to ensure he was accepted into the Army.
“I was born in December 1922 but enlisted as being born in December 1921 so that I would definitely be admitted.
Stan was sworn in at the Melbourne Town Hall and recalls the medical checkups and vaccinations all the men underwent before they left Australia.
“They pumped us full of needles and it seemed like they were giving us a shot for everything and anything.”
The fact that no one underwent any training before departing Australia was also somewhat of a concern for Stan and he recalls their nerves when they finally boarded the Queen Mary from Sydney Harbour.
“I think they were a bit bloody desperate for people at that stage and they just wanted us over there as quickly as possible.
The trip from Sydney to Palestine took 23 days and was hampered by rough seas and the prospect of attack from enemy submarines following the ocean liner.
“We were zigzagging all the way to ensure the submarines couldn’t get a line on us and fire off a torpedo.
On arrival Stan was somewhat relieved to undertake three months of training in the Palestinian desert and familiarise himself with the various weapons they were going to be using in battle.
He recalls many events in vivid detail, in particular Christmas Eve 1943 when he was posted on the Turkish/Syria border and he witnessed something he had never seen before.
“I was on guard duty and it started to snow, I had never seen snow before so I went running in and told the whole platoon.
But the reaction from his fellow soldiers was not what he had expected and he was told ‘in no uncertain terms what to do with my snow’.
Christmas dinner that year was also another memorable time for Stan and the promised feast that the soldiers were to receive as their gift.
“It looked like we weren’t going to get any Christmas dinner until about 5pm when a local started hurtling down the road with six of the biggest turkeys we had ever seen.
“The cook told us that if we wanted to eat them we had to pluck them ourselves, so we cleared the snow and pulled out our bayonets and off came their heads and we started to pluck their feathers.
During his first two years abroad Stan was given two weeks of leave from active service and spent this time hitchhiking all over the MiddleEast.
“We use to jump into the army vehicles and get a ride to where ever they were going… we stuck our noses into everything and one major highlight of our time off was seeing the Dead Sea.
“My father told me a story about the Dead Sea when he served in World War I so I really wanted to see it for myself.
Stan’s battalion was then moved to defend Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) from possible Japanese attack and describes his time there as ‘a three month holiday on a tropical island’.
But it wasn’t all a vacation, with the island in constant danger of Japanese air raids and the soldiers on high alert.
The battalion then headed back to Australia and Stan laughs when he recalls stepping off the train at Spencer Street Station.
“We got off the train and we saw our first Yank, who had an Aussie girl on his arm, so we let him know what we all thought of that.
Stan returned home to Warragul during his 10 days leave and was delighted to see his parents, Frank and Mabel.
However, he felt mixed emotions again when he had to depart for New Guinea and repel the Japanese advances.
He said he was sorry to say goodbye to his parents but was looking forward to catching up with his Army mates.
Time spent in New Guinea was nothing like that of the tropical island environment of Ceylon.
“We were based at Milne Bay in New Guinea, were constantly up to our knees in mud and the joint was full of malaria.
The troops were subject to constant air raids from the Japanese and were on high alert for the majority of the time.
He said he used the metal from one aeroplane that was shot down as a souvenir and he has the names of all his platoon members engraved on the piece that is now mounted as a plaque in his house.
Once the war had ended Stan was discharged from the Army and returned to the Warragul farm he left as teenager and returned to as a man.
That man couldn’t believe his luck when he realised a lovely young lady had moved in next door and they started up a relationship that still continues on today, 57 years later.
“I only had to ride my bike a mile to go courting,” recalls Stan with a cheeky grin.
That lady was Margot and the two were married on 12 February 1949.
The couple lived on a few farms in regional Victoria before settling in Berwick where they have been for the past 40 years.
Stan and Margot had three children but in tragic circumstances two of their lives were prematurely cut short.
Their eldest daughter was killed in a car accident at the age of 21 and their only son died in a workplace accident in his early 20s.
His youngest daughter, Donna, recently celebrated her 50th birthday and Stan takes great joy in spending time with her and his grand children, who only live a short distance away.
A sparkle comes across Stan’s eye when he talks lovingly about his grandchildren and how much they mean to him.
“I walk my young granddaughter Cye down to primary school every morning and I love spending time with them whenever I can.”